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On to Assen: World Superbike

&#160;After a break of almost a month the Superbike World Championship enters
its hectic final leg with round nine of the series at Assen in the
Netherlands this weekend.
With four rounds over the next six weekends it promises to be a busy
time for the teams and riders in what has been a thrilling championship
so far. One man who can surely be expected to be in the thick of the
action is Yamaha Motor Italia's Noriyuki Haga, who is the closest rival
to series leader Troy Bayliss (Ducati). The Japanese star gave his best
form of the season last time out in Brands Hatch, winning the day's
second race, and consolidating his second place in the championship.

Haga rates Assen as one of his favourite circuits although, like his
rivals, he has yet to experience the shortened circuit that awaits him
this season. Previously boasting the longest lap time on the superbike
calendar, the entire northern loop section has been removed to make way
for a new car park and improved spectator facilities. The circuit now
measures 4.55km, compared to 6km of the previous incarnation. Many
riders have expressed their disappointment at the emancipated layout but
the real winners will be the trackside spectators, who will experience
22 laps of superbike action, rather than the 16 laps of previous years.
&quot;Assen has always been one of my favourite circuits and I have had some
good results there before,&quot; explains Haga. &quot;I know that they have
changed the track quite a bit but it does not bother me at all - the
track is the same for all the riders and we must just go out and ride
it. At Brands Hatch everything was good. Only a small problem with the
bike stopped me from pushing as hard as I would have liked in the last
laps of the first race, but otherwise the bike was perfect.
&quot;I'm not thinking about the championship and I just want to go out and
win as many races as possible. It was a great feeling to win again in
Brands Hatch and since then I have had a holiday back home in Japan. It
was good to relax and spend some time with my family and I'm feeling in
good shape for the last part of the season.&quot;
Haga's team-mate Andrew Pitt was the rider of the day at Brands Hatch
for many people. The Australian recovered from two bad starts to charge
through the field and finish fourth and third in the races. If the
former supersport world champion can get off the line better in Assen
then there is little doubt he will be in contention at the Dutch round.
Pitt currently lies sixth in the championship but, with former MotoGP
winner Alex Barros (Honda) just nine points ahead of him in fifth place,
his target for Assen is to add to his three podium finishes this year
and move up the leaderboard.
While Haga faces an uphill struggle to claw back the early-season
advantage of Bayliss, the 2006 Supersport World Championship looks like
going right down to the wire. Kevin Curtain heads to the Netherlands on
equal points to defending world champion Sebastien Charpentier (Honda)
with his Yamaha Motor Germany team-mate Broc Parkes also well in
contention for the championship.
Yamaha's third-generation YZF-R6 has flourished over the second part of
the season, taking pole position and the win at each of the last three
races, in the hands of Curtain, Parkes and Yamaha Team Italia's Massimo
Roccoli, the winner in Misano. &quot;It's back in our own hands now,&quot; says
Curtain. &quot;We were working on developing the bike at the beginning of the
season and then had a few races where we ran into a bit of bad luck.
We're working together much better as a team and our understanding the
bike improves at every race. I've always maintained that the
championship wouldn't be decided over the first half of the season and
here we are going into the last four races with everything to play for.&quot;<br />Circuit:
Assen<br />Country: Netherlands<br />Track length: 4550m<br />Opened: 1925<br />Lap
record: To be established<br />Last year's winner: Chris Vermeulen (Honda)